Review: 428 Shibuya Scramble

Goutham Jayaraman

Ravencrow Game Review #5

 

428 Shibuya Scramble

https://store.steampowered.com/app/648580/428_Shibuya_Scramble/

Genre	Visual Novel
Platform	PC
Developer	Spike Chunsoft
Publisher	Spike Chunsoft
Playtime	27.3 hours
Date Completed	14/2/2021
Date Reviewed	10/5/2021
Overall Grade	S*

 

428 Shibuya Scramble…. Well… how do I put it?

Its more than just a game. Its an experience.

An experience you’d jolly well better experience at least once in your lifetime.

Yes, this masterpiece of a game is high up there on my list of favorites, probably even taking the top spot.

But exactly what is the game about?

Well, it is a visual novel which features a brilliant cast of characters, an exciting and gripping daylong narrative and numerous branching paths to make your choices actually mean something. And it does all of that using real life actors, photographs and motion pictures, all of which allude to how truly impressive the game actually is. Think of it as a 27 hour long blockbuster.

 

What I liked

-          The game’s story. One of the best stories I’ve seen in a game.

-          The fact that you could play from the perspective of 5 different characters, each seemingly unrelated to one another

-          Having access to a neat 3d timeline that showed a list of events and allowed me to go back and review any of these events

-          The vast number of choices available to make

-          The choices themselves, some having immediate and drastic effects on the story while I only felt the creeping effects of others much later on.

-          The game length, which was pleasantly high for a visual novel

-          The simple fact that the game was made with cinematography. That inspired me to use travel photographs to create my own novels and point-and-click games (although I sadly haven’t gotten around to that yet)

-          All the attention paid to little details, inclusive of all the extra information I could pull up to get additional lore regarding not just the game but the real life location.

-          The gradual intertwining of the characters as the story went on

-          The location itself (although let’s be honest, pretty much any real world location would have worked for me)

-          How immersive the game was (despite all the “Keep Outs”)

What I disliked

-          When going back to make choices or check stuff, I couldn’t actually resume the novel from any point I wanted. This made for a fair amount of wasted time spent frantically fast forwarding text to get to the part I wanted.

-          Some of the character jumps not being entirely logical.

-          Some of the characters’ timelines ending prematurely (It is what it is, I suppose)

-          Some degree of frustration arose from being unable to find the way to proceed. However that was in part due to me refusing to view the hints attached to each game over screen.

-          The constant “Keep Outs” – especially in the latter half of the game - were rather jarring and detrimental to the game’s immersion. A “Keep Out” is essentially a sudden break where the story you were enthusiastically reading comes to an abrupt end, forcing you to go seek another character’s timeline for a character jump to resume the story. While this worked for the most part, I think the game would have still been okay without them, even though they are technically a unique mechanic.

Gameplay 17/20	+ Choices and character jumps made for interesting gameplay that enhanced the visual novel reading experience - But on the other hand, the very same mechanics proved troublesome in some parts, impeding progress and causing frustration - Fair amount of time spend rereading text and being unable to skip to a certain point
Game Design 17/20	+ Highly creative design + Intertwining of the characters with clever use of character jumps and choices affecting other timelines. Clearly well-planned out - Disability to resume reading from (skip to) any desired point. - While jumps were largely connected in a logical manner, some jumps later on were based simply on similarity or even just a name randomly appearing in a text. This proved unintuitive and caused some minor frustration. - Excessive number of “Keep Outs” as the game progressed. They are immersion-breaking.
Graphics 21/20	+ Expert use of cinematography, photographs and real-life actors made for outstanding graphics and high immersion value.
Audio 20/20	+ Music and sound effects always served to complement the mood of the game, keeping immersion high.
Story 25/20	+ Impressive narrative which clearly had immense amounts of effort put into it and is very well written + Numerous plot twists and climaxes keep the story constantly exciting + Story somehow manages to start out as 5 separate tracks and slowly but surely converges over time, much to the amazement of the player + Even the fact that the entire story happened throughout the course of a single day is fascinating in and of itself + One of the best stories I have experienced, thus easily limit breaking past 20 and maxing out.
Lore 25/20	+ Highly memorable and relatable characters who you immediately get attached to and invested in + Fantastic cast of characters included beyond just the 5 cover protagonists + Highly skilled acting + Inclusion of additional tidbits of information providing lore about characters and the locations. + Good choice of location (busy active location with many points of interest and iconic landmarks) + Acquiring all the photographs must have taken an unimaginable amount of effort
Value 18/20	+ Solid playtime for a visual novel - Fair amount of play time is rereading stuff however + Decent replay value in finding all the different bad endings + You’ll definitely come back to this game after a few years + Fairly unique experience - Even so, the price is a tad high with respect to the play time. It is understandable considering the production cost, but still.
Overall Grade 20/20	S*
Score	102

 

428 Shibuya Scramble is, at least to me, a one of a kind game that proved to be a memorable experience I will likely never forget (which kind of sucks because that means I cannot play the game again for another 5 years *grumble*). The game was an absolute pleasure to play from start to finish and always made me look forward to the next session. It was definitely a sad moment to see the final scenes of the game and having it finally come to an end, but well… that is what happens to all good things.

The only problems I have with the game (ignoring the $40+ price tag) are some minor grievances caused by the game’s unique mechanics, namely the “Keep Out” scenes, certain choices and character jumps. But luckily, these do not detract from the game’s overall grade which stands as a proud and firm S*

So do yourself a favor and go buy this game, and you may as well pick up some of Spike Chunsoft’s other masterpieces while you’re at it (Danganronpa for example)